‘Files related to fake pilots missing from DGCA’

New Delhi: The files related to some
pilots under scanner for obtaining licences using forged
documents have gone missing from airline regulator DGCA`s
office, police said on Tuesday.

Police have registered a case of destruction of
evidence against unknown persons in this regard and initiated
an investigation into the incident, which they believe is
done to protect some DGCA officials who were involved in
helping people procure pilot licences using forged marksheets.

"A case under section 201 (causing disappearance of
evidence) of IPC has been registered following the DGCA
informing that files related to at least two pilots under
scanner have gone missing," a senior police official said.

Ashok Chand, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime),
said they have received three new names earlier and when asked
for the papers related to one of them, the Directorate General
of Civil Aviation informed them that they could not trace it.

Another investigator said the files related to two
more pilots have also gone missing from the DGCA office.

"We are studying how the DGCA route their files. Once
we establish how the files move, we hope we will be able to
find it," he said.

Fourteen people, including six pilots and three DGCA
staffers, were arrested in Delhi and Jaipur since March seven
after the fake pilot scam was unearthed by the DGCA. The
pilots were procuring commercial pilot licence or Air
Transport Pilot Licence allegedly submitting fake marksheets.

With this, police have smashed two rackets involved in
procuring pilot licences using forged marksheets. Earlier on
March 26, Delhi Police had claimed to have busted a gang
involved in helping pilots obtain licences using forged
documents with the arrest of a senior official of DGCA and
three others, including a pilot.

Pradeep Kumar (48), presently an Assistant Director
with the DGCA, Pradeep Tyagi (35), a pilot who helped others
procure fake marksheets, and his two associates Pankaj Jain
(23) and Lalit Jain (34) were arrested from Delhi and Chennai
then. Two pilots were arrested earlier in March.

Mahan Jyoti Bhattacharya (37) and Mohammed K Ansari
(42) were apprehended on April five following the questioning
of two pilots Abhishek Kaushik and Hiren Nagar who claimed
that these DGCA staffers have taken lakhs of rupees from them
for providing licences using forged marksheets.